Financier given second term as chancellor

a news release issued yesterday by the media relations office

Prem Watsa (left), one of Canada's top business leaders, has been re-elected by the university senate as chancellor of the University of Waterloo.

Watsa, chairman and CEO of Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd., will serve a second three-year term, beginning May 1, 2012. His current three-year term of office ends April 30, 2012. As Waterloo's ninth chancellor, Watsa presides over convocation ceremonies, conferring degrees, diplomas and certificates on graduating students. He also serves as a leading ambassador for the university.

"Prem Watsa has shown a passionate interest in the future plans and aspirations of our students, which is best seen by his enthusiastic and energetic participation at convocation ceremonies," said Feridun Hamdullahpur, president of the university. "He is an inspiration and role model to many of us at the university, but, most importantly, to our students.” 

As well, Watsa has shared his considerable international experience with the university community. The university's Sixth Decade plan calls for a focus on the undergraduate student experience, a growing of grad studies and an expansion of Waterloo's international reach, which includes campuses in Rome, Dubai and Nanjing.

"I've enjoyed my time as chancellor of the University of Waterloo for a number of reasons, particularly because of the opportunity it has provided to interact with so many bright, innovative young minds," Watsa said. "Waterloo represents excellence at many levels and I look forward to continuing to serve as a part of this unconventional organization."

Watsa was born in Hyderabad, India, in 1950. He earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1971, moved to Ontario the following year and later earned an MBA from the University of Western Ontario.

His professional career began at Confederation Life Insurance Co. in Toronto and he served as vice-president of Confederation Life Investment Counsel from 1974 to 1983. He then served a year as vice-president of start-up firm GW Asset Management. Watsa co-founded Hamblin Watsa Investment Counsel Ltd. (now fully owned by Fairfax) in 1984. The next year he took control of Markel Financial Holdings Ltd. 

In 1987, he re-organized Markel and renamed it Fairfax, which is short for "fair and friendly acquisitions". The name reflects the company's guiding principles, which advocate that honesty and integrity are essential in all relationships and will never be compromised.

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Major events fill up Reunion weekend

Homecoming weekend is nearly here — but it’s “Homecoming” no longer, as it’s been rebranded to “Reunion 2011”. Events that are concentrated on Saturday (but spill over from Friday to Sunday) will bring hundreds of alumni back to Waterloo, as well as offering activities of interest to students, faculty and staff, and members of the community. Here’s a quick rundown of some major things that are happening:

• Alumni reunions — in engineering they’re organized for people whose graduating year ended in a 1 or a 6, but in other faculties the reunions are generally for any graduate who’d like to show up. Math will take its grads on tours of the new Math 3 building, environment is showing off the just-opened EV3, science has a get-together specifically for chemistry and biochemistry grads, and Conrad Grebel University College is celebrating the “2000-2005 era”. Schedules and details are on the alumni affairs web site.

• Applied health sciences will hold its 26th annual fun run Saturday morning — once or twice around the ring road, running or walking, starting outside Matthews Hall at 10:15 a.m. More than 300 participants are expected. They’ll travel in a counterclockwise direction on the inside lane of the road, and from 9:30 a.m. to noon on Saturday, vehicles on the ring road, including Grand River Transit buses, will use only the outside lane (traveling clockwise, entering at University Avenue or  Columbia Street and turning left). A barbecue for participants follows the run.

• Renison University College will hold its customary East Asian Festival, this year concentrated in a four-hour block, Saturday from 11:00 to 3:00 in the college’s great hall. That will be followed by a 4 p.m. lecture on “Flags of East Asia” by Renison chancellor, retired bishop and vexillology expert Ralph Spence (tickets $10).

• Four new members of the Athletic Hall of Fame will be inducted at a ceremony (with buffet lunch) on the “alumni tent” beside Warrior Field, starting at 9:30 a.m. The event precedes the 1 p.m. football game, at which the Warriors host the Windsor Lancers.

• Aboriginal services, based at St. Paul’s United College, will hold the university’s eighth annual Pow-wow, with artisans, food vendors, storytelling, dancing and drumming. Saturday’s event is preceded by a 6:30 a.m. sunrise ceremony; otherwise, activities run from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and admission is $5 (free for children; students admitted free with a non-perishable food item).

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Nine students from Europe (Germany and Austria) are on campus this term and have been twinned with Waterloo students who will be heading to European Union countries in the winter for co-op jobs. The two groups got together for orientation and picture-taking the other day, along with staff from co-op and career services who are helping to operate the program, called CANEU Co-op. Most of the participants are in engineering, says Lisa ter Woort of CECS.

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Also happening on and near campus

The Federation of Students is holding Clubs and Services Days today (and again tomorrow) in the Student Life Centre — a longer name than the traditional "Clubs Days" but shorter than last year's "Clubs, Services and Societies". Anyway, students are invited to "come join us in the SLC from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to learn about the amazing clubs and services Feds is affiliated with! Whether you like cheese, snowboarding, drawing or current events, there's something for everyone!" Among the groups that will have a table in the great hall today is Beyond Borders, based at St. Jerome's University. "Beyond Borders is a three-credit academically centred international service-learning experience designed to help students develop leadership skills for a changing global society, become aware of and concerned about social justice, and gain valuable experience volunteering with development organizations at home and abroad," says Katlyn Sheldon, outreach programs coordinator at St. Jerome's. "The program consists of two terms of on-campus course work and one field studies credit."

Also happening today, and also based at St. Jerome's, is the first event in a series of what are to be called the "Bridges Lectures", on the grounds that they'll build interdisciplinary bridges — specifically, between mathematics and other subjects that are studied at St. Jerome's. "Each of the series' public lectures will be delivered jointly by a mathematician and a non-mathematician," says Benoit Charbonneau, who's in the former group and who will be speaking tonight along with historian Steven Bednarski. Their topic: "Getting Medieval with Math: Gerbert d'Aurillac and Nicolas Oresme, two beacons of light in the so-called Dark Ages." Admission is free; the lecture starts at 7:30 in Siegfried Hall, the big auditorium at St. Jerome's, and a reception follows.

Writers, critics, historians, publishers, editors, community leaders, and scholars from Canada, the United States, mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan will gather this week to participate in a series of events hosted by the Confucius Institute at Renison University College to commemorate the 100th anniversary of  the 1911 Chinese Revolution. That event, also known as the Xinhai Revolution, saw China overthrow 4,000 years of monarchy in favour of a republic. During the past 100 years, both domestic and overseas Chinese writers have described and interpreted the revolution. An international symposium, “Literature in History, History in Literature”, will examine the resulting literary works by Chinese writers, both at home and abroad, for the past century. Topics of discussion include literature and history; Chinese immigration, domestic and overseas, personal and historical; historical facts and literary imagination, as well as  narrative techniques. An eight-member delegation from the Chinese Writers’ Association will bring to Waterloo some prominent writers and critics. Ligang Chen, the Chinese Consul General in Toronto, will also speak. Along with the symposium, the Confucius Institute will host two free activities that are open to the public: “Music and Poems Night”, Friday at 7 p.m. in the Theatre of the Arts, and movie night Saturday at 7:30 at Renison, when “Autumn Gem”, a film about a woman who sacrificed her life for the 1911 revolution, will be shown.

Today through Sunday, the English department's Critical Media Lab will be hosting the 25th annual conference of the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts. “This is a major international meeting with over 250 speakers,” says CriMeLab director Marcel O’Gorman, “including plenary talks by media philosopher Bernard Stiegler (Centre Pompidou, Paris) and philosopher of science Isabelle Stengers (Université Libre de Bruxelles). The multi-disciplinary conference theme is Pharmakon, a term used by Socrates to describe that which can both heal and kill. In addition to panels of speakers and plenary addresses, there will be a major thematic exhibition of art at the Critical Media Lab and Artery Gallery, ranging from textiles, painting, and sculpture to sensor-based digital media. The exhibition was sponsored in part by the Department of English and, appropriately, the School of Pharmacy. The conference will be spread throughout the city of Kitchener so that participants can interact with the public art on display at the biennial of the Contemporary Art Forum of Kitchener and Area. Venues include the Delta Hotel (conference headquarters), TheMuseum, and Kitchener City Hall.”

Here's a memo from the information systems and technology department: "The Green IT Advisory Group is interested in understanding printing attitudes and practices on campus. As a result, we have developed a survey to help us grasp the current printing culture. In order to help us gain a better understanding, please visit and complete the survey. This survey is voluntary, private and confidential. We do not collect names or any other identifying information. The survey is anonymous and will take approximately 2 minutes of your time."

The pre-winter “We’ve Got You Covered” coat sale will be held on campus for a third year, organizers have announced. "We are looking," says a memo, "for donations of clean coats, jackets, outerwear, gloves, scarves, etc. in good condition to sell at a reasonable price to our students (some of whom have never seen a winter). Proceeds from this sale will go to United Way and any items not sold will be donated to Out of the Cold, Coats for Kids or Anselma House." Coat donations are wanted by October 21 (drop off at one of several designated locations, or call ext. 38120 or 36574), and the sale will be held November 2 and 3 in the Student Life Centre.

CAR

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